A Face of Memory
by Skywolf24
Summary: He doesn't remember the name of his best friend. But he remembers a face. CA: WS Bucky one shot.


**A Face of Memory**

**All characters belong to Marvel Comics**

**I own nothing.**

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The softness of light creeps over his exposed skin, everything feels cold around him as he sits in the bunker alone with the bare planes of his shoulders pressed against the cement wall. Blood runs down his smooth jaw and slowly invades the grooves of his chest pectorals, and slopes downward to the compacted area of his abdomen.

It's been three hours since his debriefing of his last mission. His mind runs blank with endless static, as he roves his daunting, vacant steel-blue eyes over at the silver tray of food they provide for him.

He probes his metal fingers over the blanket tuck underneath his slender and battered frame, his muscles burn of exhaustion and bones throb under the iron beaten layers of his skin. He is given freedom, only for a few hours before he receives his orders-for seventy hours he waited and obeyed the hours, never questioning and never looking back once the smoke cleared. In the darkness he finds comfort and searches for an escape from the surging impulses of their control invading his mind and wiping his existence every time he gets closer of unmasking his true face.

Within the array of the chaotic thoughts imprisoning his mind, he always seems to find another face when he peers deeper into the crevices and breaks through the stone barricades with the symbol of Hydra smeared in red, dripping over the cracks. It's just a glimpse that he sees -a preserved image of a man he knows from another lifetime.

He can never say the name, sometimes he forces a few words when his throat unclogs but the identity of the ghost his thoughts conceive is buried into the abyss of the ice, rage and control. He wants to unlock his voice and throw away the muzzle they place over his mouth to keep him silent under their power-but he know he is a defiant, stubborn and resilient. He stood in darkness of their pits and allowed them to lash pain over his skin-break him until he felt his soul drain out. They took everything from him-his name, memories and heart and molded him into a monster that is dead to the world and alive for Hydra.

His missions became his existence, his life became their weapon and his dreams faded into nightmares.

_In time you will accept this life, Soldier. You are Hydra and you always follow our commands._

Now, he sits in silence with lethal patience coursing through his veins. He tilts his head back, allowing his chin length dark strands to shroud over his youthful and chiseled face. He twirls the blade with his fingers and stares down at the folder on the desk. He tears his eyes away and notices a pen on the cement floor, a shadow of a smirk plays on his lips. He reaches his metal arm down, grimacing as he hears the metal plates hiss with movement and grabs the small writing tool.

Clenching his heavy, chiseled jaw he bring the pen close to his face and studied it with his menacing blue embers. He clicks the pen as a rebellious gleam masks over his harden stare. Looking at the object clutch in his firm grasp, he feels a little piece of humanity brush over his tortured soul as he opens the folder and grabs a page-he doesn't care about the information printed on the other side, more a slice of time he refuses to focus on the mission preparation and drags the tip of the pen against the paper.

He closes his eyelids shut, blocking off everything around him and searches for a memory underneath weaved webs of HYDRA's control. Allowing his hand to guide him out of the delirium, he grasps the image of the face he keeps hidden from his superiors and the volts of electronic pulses raking off his memories when the metal probes rest over his temples and he unleashes his screams of having his soul butchered over and over again until he is an empty, fried husk without a consistence.

His eyebrows furrow into a sullen expression when he sees the face and he starts sketching every detail of the man as the image becomes clear as he draws a light outline of a sharp and structural face.

"I know you," he whispers, his voice is dark and strained, it's been days since he spoke without wearing the muzzle. He starts with the eyes, the focused and determined cobalt eyes that held a fierce and noble spirit behind them. "You have blue eyes." He adds the pupils and darkens the irises with only a smudge of white. "You were a good man." He drew in the perfect nose almost like it was carved out of stone and the soft curved shape of the man's lips to match; he remembers how that full, arched mouth always gave a lopsided smirk.

He draws in the thick eyebrows and adds in all the details that come to him-the long lashes at the curve of the eyelids, the chiseled definition of a strong jaw and finally the short light hair that was slightly parted with a small curl hanging over his forehead. He finishes the drawing, adding lines for a neck and writes down a few words in Russian underneath the sketch.

Я знал его..,_ I knew him_

In those long moments, he stares solely at the drawing, before the door opens and the high superior steps inside. "Everything is set. We've only got one shot at this-the threat must be terminated for HYDRA to thrive." the older, blonde-haired man gives him a hard look. "Do you understand, Soldier?"

"Yes," he nods slowly. "I understand."

"Good," the leader affirms with a sadistic grin tugging over his withered lips. "All the information on the target is in that folder. Read it and then suit up."

The door slams; he doesn't flinch-he narrows his eyes down at the folder and scans over the documents until he freezes and flips over the paper with the drawing.

His molten sky blue colored eyes grow wide as he blanches against the bed and grabs his knife-stabbing the blade into the center of a pillow. The face-the man he remembers has a name that will soon be written in blood.

"Steven Grant Rogers." he growls out his target and curves his lips into a vicious grimace as he ends his words with a heart wrenching snarl emitting from the depths of his raw throat, his metal fingers curl into a tight fist. "You're my mission."


End file.
